To Secure this Beachhead of Worker's Power: A Soviet Union Quest.

[X] Plan: Soviet Centralist
[X] It isn't much but it's honest work

I'm not sure about the agricultural survey, but with regards to the census, the youth and labor organizations are much more useful being dedicated to actually directing labor and serving as a labor reserve, especially when the state apparatus is woefully inadequate for major redirection of labor. Feels like a bad idea to occupy them with something like a census when we'll need them for other crucial projects.

[X] Plan: Labor Reserve
-[X]Leninist Reform Plan
-[X]Agree to the meeting, but make no other comment
-[X]Let's keep what friends we have
-[X]Rykov's Plan

An alternate plan that goes for the compromise option for Agriculture, but does Rykov's Plan for the survey to preserve the Komsomol for other projects.
 
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[x]Power to the Left SRs
-[x]Maintain the status quo
-[x]Agree to the meeting, but make no other comment
-[x]The Narodnik Knows the Peasants Best
-[x]Proletarians, not Bourgeois Specialists
 
[x] Plan: Common Lenin W
-[x] Leninist Reform Plan
-[x] Agree to the meeting, but make no other comment
-[x] Let's keep what friends we have
-[x] Proletarians, not Bourgeois Specialists
 
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[X]Menshevik Reform Plan
[X]Agree to the meeting, and provide assurances of goodwill
[X]The Narodnik Knows the Peasants Best
[X]Rykov's Plan
 
[X] It isn't much but it's honest work
-[X] Maintain the status quo
-[X] Agree to the meeting, but make no other comment
-[X] The Narodnik Knows the Peasants Best
-[X] Proletarians, not Bourgeois Specialists
 
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[X]Maintain the status quo
[X]Agree to the meeting, and provide assurances of goodwill
[X]The Narodnik Knows the Peasants Best
[X]Proletarians, not Bourgeois Specialists

Ahh, chaos
 
[X] Leninist Reform Plan
[X]Agree to the meeting, but make no other comment
[X]The Narodnik Knows the Peasants Best
[X]Proletarians, not Bourgeois Specialists
[X] Department Of Technological Acquisition
[X] Establishing Collective Ownership Of Agricultural Machinery
 
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[X] Plan: Soviet Centralist

I have trust in the socialist state for some how resolve decades of neglect about data of the real population in ussr

And what is the burocrat, if not the arm of the state to build the communist way?
 
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[X] Plan: Soviet Centralist

Frankly, ideologically motivated party members cannot be trusted to provide the government with accurate information.
This is especially relevant concerning rural areas, in which the party is both far less present and less trusted.
 
There wouldn't be much in the way of motivation for them to sabotage a census of all things though, especially when this re-hiring is what lets them keep food on the table. It's not as though the Tsar did a particularly good job of inspiring the sort of loyalty you'd need to want to go out of your way to commit sabotage that endangers your livelihood (the livelihood you just got back at that.)

The Komsomol is a manpower reserve tens of thousands deep that is ideologically reliable and available to be redirected to any major project that needs hands to work on it. I'd rather keep them reserved for such projects rather than using them on something we can just toss some ex-Tsarist clerks at without any severe compromising.
 
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[X]Leninist Reform Plan
[X]Agree to the meeting, but make no other comment
[X]The Narodnik Knows the Peasants Best
[X]Proletarians, not Bourgeois Specialists
 
Agriculture

On Milyutin's proposal for agriculture is pretty simple, a survey solely focused on how much grain can be extracted from the peasantry. I'm pretty skeptical of this, as while it may help us extract more grain, it doesn't actually do what the proposal wants, which is gather information so we can modernize agriculture. It would cheaper than the other proposals though.

On a small-p political level, this is him moving against Spiridinova and the Left-SRs. As a Bolshevik member, he disagrees with their takes on agriculture and wishes to centralize it under the party. This seems like a really bad idea. The peasantry doesn't trust us and loves the Left-SRs, while the Left-SRs don't trust us either. By hurting our relations with them, we're hurting our relations with the peasantry, especially given the focus on grain extraction.

Lenin's plan is a very uneasy middle ground. While Stalin, Rykov, and Milyutin are biased against it, I do think they're right in that this is going to lead to a lot of bureaucratic catfights. Milyutin and Spiridinova have differing views on what to do, and so it's not going to be pleasant to work through.

The proposal to support Spiridinova is keeping more to the spirit of what we want with the proposal. It's more expensive, but also more in-depth and likely more effective. On a political level, while it displeases some in the party, it may help keep the Left-SRs on our side. We'll be giving them more of a base, as a result, but worth it to me.

Rykov here is basically arguing for his proposal to support a census. He realizes there's not going to be enough money to do both, and wants the census over the agriculture survey.

Census

On the census I think we're starting to get into the meat of the debate regarding the party-state, why it forms and the benefits and downsides.

Rykov I think is advancing a few things. On a practical level he's concerned over the underdevelopment of the soviet bureaucracy. If we wish to plan an economy we need to have skilled bureaucrats to do so. Otherwise we're going to have vibes-based economic planning. He's not wrong about this, and I do think it would be good to utilize these bourgeois specialists somewhere.

On a political level, I believe Rykov is moving to gather an independent base. The specialists are people that need his patronage to be hired, otherwise they lack effective routes into state jobs. They provide both an effective service and some backing outside the party he can rely on. In addition, he's not playing nice with Skobelev or Kollantai, Food and Social Welfare respectively. While he could just be tired and forgetting to mention them, it does imply that he's aiming to be on top of their departments. After all, aren't food and social welfare just internal affairs?

Looking to Kollantai's proposal on a practical level, she's aiming to use lower-level party members to staff the bureaucracy. By using existing party apparatuses, more people could be mobilized into doing such work. I'm assuming party members don't need to be paid as well as the specialists. Of course, this is optimistic about their capabilities of doing the census. I have no clue how a census back then was run, some of it is just going door to door sure, but I'm skeptical of concluding that's basically all a census is.

On a political level, this is concentrating power in the Bolshevik party, against Rykov's move to establish more power in the state. This does seem more popular in the party itself, as can be expected, with the Chairman, Nationalities, and Education supporting it.

Briefly on Milyutin's mention, I think it's mostly an attempt to make sure his consolidation of agriculture goes through. He's not wrong that doing both hurts, when we'll need the money for economic development, but a census 20 years ago doesn't seem super accurate imo. Lurin's taking a more moderate view of this, and presumably trying to angle against centralizing the bureaucracy in the Bolshevik party.
 
Also a kudos to Curby for writing out an interesting political situation. I like the personality of the ministers slightly bleeding through the notes. The party-state stuff really reminds me of some of my reading on the the Chinese revolution, specifically what I read of Rise of the Red Engineers, which I think I may need to finish now lol.
 
[X] Leninist Reform Plan
[X]Agree to the meeting, but make no other comment
[X]The Narodnik Knows the Peasants Best
[X]Proletarians, not Bourgeois Specialists
 
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Still deciding on the higher level stuff, and I might change my mind later. I'd rather do one or the other between the survey or the census. Politically and practically the Narodnik proposal for agriculture is better. I believe it to be more effective and will help stabilize our government, even if it does give ground to the Left-SRs. I don't like Rykov's political moves here, even if I agree more with putting the specialists in the bureaucracy.

[X]Agree to the meeting, but make no other comment
[X]The Narodnik Knows the Peasants Best
[X]We Already have a Census
 
[X]Agree to the meeting, but make no other comment
[X]The Narodnik Knows the Peasants Best
 
@Curby what's the rough cost estimates between Rykov's plan and Kollontai's plan? The rough vibe I was getting is that Rykov's is more expensive but hires educated specialists for the task, while Kollontai's is cheaper due to using existing and motivated party members. However, it also potentially sounds like the scale of Kollontai's proposal is a bit greater, so it might be cheaper on a per ruble basis but costs the same as Rykov's plan.
 
The Komsomol is a manpower reserve tens of thousands deep that is ideologically reliable and available to be redirected to any major project that needs hands to work on it. I'd rather keep them reserved for such projects rather than using them on something we can just toss some ex-Tsarist clerks at without any severe compromising.
I think the comparison to a political campaign is actually really telling, and a major reason to use the party manpower reserves; it's not merely a chance to exercise political-campaign muscle memory (though it is that for old hands), but it's also a development of political-campaigning skills for some of the very newest recruits and youngest members who may not have done anything of the sort before. If the point of the party is to train the workers to rule, and the Bolshevik leadership think it is, then this is exactly the sort of thing it ought to be doing.
 
@Curby what's the rough cost estimates between Rykov's plan and Kollontai's plan? The rough vibe I was getting is that Rykov's is more expensive but hires educated specialists for the task, while Kollontai's is cheaper due to using existing and motivated party members. However, it also potentially sounds like the scale of Kollontai's proposal is a bit greater, so it might be cheaper on a per ruble basis but costs the same as Rykov's plan.

Neither gave cost estimates at the Sovnarkom discussion, though both argued that their plans were cheaper. It is likely that Rykov's plan will be a bit more expensive, especially in the long-term, since he doesn't intend to simply fire the newly-hired bureaucrats once they've wrapped up the census.
 
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@Curby Are we also allowed to suggest agenda items in this vote as well?

[X]Leninist Reform Plan
[X]Agree to the meeting, but make no other comment
[X]The Narodnik Knows the Peasants Best
[X]Proletarians, not Bourgeois Specialists

I feel we need to avoid entrenching too much of the power in bureaucracy. Census taking is very much a place where investing in building the power of the working class is both straight forward and low risk.
 
@Curby Are we also allowed to suggest agenda items in this vote as well?

[X]Leninist Reform Plan
[X]Agree to the meeting, but make no other comment
[X]The Narodnik Knows the Peasants Best
[X]Proletarians, not Bourgeois Specialists

I feel we need to avoid entrenching too much of the power in bureaucracy. Census taking is very much a place where investing in building the power of the working class is both straight forward and low risk.

Of course. You can suggest agenda items whenever there's an ongoing vote (though to get the required votes, it might be smart to do so earlier into a vote). It's my way of making the timeline more collaborative...or farming out some my work to all of you fine people, depending on how you look at it!
 
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[X]Maintain the status quo
[X]Agree to the meeting, and provide assurances of goodwill
[X]Our Agriculture is Perfectly Adequate
[X]We Already have a Census
 
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